


Tooka in the Meal Bin

by eschscholzia



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy, Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Animals in Peril, Batuu, Ensemble Cast, Galaxy's Edge, Gen, Happy Ending, Loth-cats, On Hiatus, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Resistance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-23
Updated: 2019-12-23
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:21:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21921685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eschscholzia/pseuds/eschscholzia
Summary: "Even the smallest person can change the course of the future," goes the quote. In the aftermath of the disaster on Hosnian Prime, an elderly Loth-cat who wants nothing more than to sleep peacefully in her patch of sunslight with her stuffed toy is called to help the fledgling Resistance on Batuu.
Collections: Rebels ROS Event





	Tooka in the Meal Bin

The thief was back in Kat Saka’s again. Mrrripp watched him scuttle through the marketplace, furtively darting from cart to cart to avoid notice. Well, Mrrripp noticed. Mrrripp swished her tail furiously. The clerk turned his back to give a customer her bag of popped grains, and the thief launched himself at the cart. He missed, but still managed to knock part of the display over. One edge of the arrangement slumped, dumping a rainbow of puffs in the dust. The clerk yelled at the thief, who crawled backwards under a nearby display, dragging a bag in his mouth.

Mrrripp threw herself across the dusty street. She darted between the legs of the customer, not caring who she tripped. The customer shrieked with indignation. The clerk shook his fist. Mrrripp didn’t look back. The thief needed to be caught. This was Mrrripp’s territory, and things like that were not allowed in her plaza. The thief pursed his mouth and waddled faster. He tried to jump, but the bag held him back. Mrrripp lunged for his ankles. The thief dropped the bag and jumped into the air, and Mrrripp’s mouth closed on tailfeathers.

Mrrripp spat the feathers out and hissed at the the thief. Nothing good had come from the thief’s arrival at Black Spire Outpost. He and his ilk were trying to edge their way from Ohnaka Transport Solutions down toward her plaza, getting bolder by the day. It was all the fault of that Hondo Ohnaka for bringing them to Black Spire.

The thief chirped from his perch on a sage green awning covering the entrance to a residence.

Mrrripp stepped forward, never taking her gaze off him.

The thief swooped in a circle over her head, taunting her. Mrrripp jumped after him, but he flew away over the mud stucco buildings. He turned back to look at her and squawked a pair of derisive notes. She scowled. Hopefully he would think twice before coming back. Mrrripp found a patch of sunslight in one corner of the plaza and curled up in it, guarding the location. The plaza had returned to its usual stream of customers, going about their business, trading for food or a moisture harvester repair part or a scarf under the bright awnings. Kat Saka’s mouse droid shuttled back and forth over the spilled grains, vacuuming them up. Every now and then the clerk picked up the mouse droid to empty it into the trash. 

⁂

It was night. Mrrripp slept in her crate at Bina’s, purring. She dreamed of the grasses of Lothal, when she was a kitten. She dreamed of traveling with her former owner, a trader, to places throughout the Outer Rim, warm planets, cold planets, places with dragonflies to leap and catch, places with blue shrimp to fish from ponds with her paw. Then she was back among the Eastern Hills, an invisible wind stirring the pale green and yellow grasses in swirls as it moved. The heads of the grass bobbed in the wind; the slender grains so different from the fat round puffs grown on Batuu. The wind carried with it the grasses’ fragrance. It was a sweet smell with just a hint of sour. Mrrripp sighed. There was nothing like a smell from her kittenhood. 

But the smell wasn’t just a dream. Mrrripp struggled awake, forcing her eyes to open. The scent of the Loth-grass filled the room. Mrrripp peered through the bars of her crate. A shaft of light from the moon came through a window. Something was moving in the shadows. A pale paw extended from the shadow into the light. It was followed by a luxurious brush of whiskers. Mrrripp inhaled sharply as the figure emerged from the shadows. It was The Elder One. The Elder One padded silently across the room, and then in one swift motion the Elder One leapt to the table next to her crate. 

Mrrripp bowed her head to meet the forehead of the Elder One. The brush of the Elder One’s whiskers were like a gentle caress of her cheek.

“Greetings, Young One,” purred the Elder One.

“I am honored,” Mrrripp responded with a gentle puff of air.

“You are needed.” The Elder One fixed Mrrripp in the stare of her luminous blue eyes. 

“Me?”

“Yes, even a simple Loth-cat like you. There is evil at work again, and friends who need help.”

Mrrripp mewled sadly, thinking of the protest so brutally put down. 

“You must go to Zade Kalliday, and befriend him.”

“I cannot, Elder One. There is too much distance between my home and the cantina. It is in hostile territory.”

The Elder One flicked her ears. 

“I will repeat myself only one more time. You must go to Zade Kalliday. He has need of you.” The Elder One sat back on her haunches, whiskers quivering. Then she gathered herself up to leap down. 

Mrrripp held out a paw through the bars of the crate to stay the Elder One. “How did you find me here on Batuu? We are so far from Home?”

The Elder One laughed, a low rumble like the motor of a speeder at the mechanic’s shop. She jumped down into the inky black, and Mrrripp lost sight of her. Mrrripp went back to sleep, dreaming of milk cartons falling from the sky over a flowered prairie.


End file.
